Male Photinus beetles emit a flashing light pattern to signal for females.

An important study on the diversity of species in the USA and their visual communication was by Lloyd (1966) [1] Photinus is from the Greek word for shining or bright.

In morphology, they resemble their predators, the Photurinae, but they are quite certainly not at all closely related as fireflies go.

Ellychnia are notable for having lost the ability to produce light again, and like the ancestors of all fireflies, communicate with pheromones only.

This group makes up the core of the tribe Photinini, and in fact it seems warranted to restrict the tribe to these genera, but more research is still needed, in particular with regard to Photinus and Ellychnia, as the relationship of their type species ("Photinus pallens" and Ellychnia corrusca) remains completely unknown, with the latter also suspected to be a cryptic species complex.